February 10, 2007
I'm Going to Have Nightmares About Pan's Labyrinth
I took a very short break from sewing this evening to go and see Pan's Labyrinth. At it's heart, the story is dark faerie tale about a young girl named Ofelia who learns that she may not be who or what she thinks she is. The visuals of the movie are beautiful. I would rank some of the scenes up there with the more macabre carefully color composed visuals I've ever seen on the big screen.
Faeries are not adorable, sweet, and inane in this movie. They are both beautiful and terrible, magical and visceral. The story is set in 1944 a remote part of the country side where the fascist Spanish military is trying to stamp out a group of resistance fighters hiding in the woods. Ofelia and her mother have been brought here to be with the Captain, Ofelia's step father, for the birth of his first child. This is only part of the story, as the "real world" plot shares screen time about 50/50 with the magic and wanders that plague Ofelia.
I think this movie is one of the best mature faerie tales I've seen in a long, long time. It brings to my mind the old faerie stories before they were cleaned up and sanitised. It's sort of like Alice and the Chronicles of Narnia ground together with a very real and unpleasant dose of the darkness of adults and war to tinge it's flavor. It was so beautiful and poetic and unlike many faerie stories produced by movie makers in this country, I did not know where it was going to end until we had traveled the whole journey. I can't say I believed in the villains all that deeply, but I believed in the heroes and I cheered for them with all my heart, even when I really thought they would fail and die.
If there is one thing I did not like about this movie it was a good chunk of the gore associated with the "real life" wartime setting. The camera often did not shy away from relatively stomach churning visuals. I would have been far happier with more of this off camera. I can accept that the folks creating the movie wanted to include it, but I felt it often deadened the effect and empathy I should have been feeling towards those in pain.
Ultimately I really liked Pan's Labyrinth, but I am unlikely to see it again. It was just a little to hard for me to stomach the gory parts. I am glad I saw it once though and I would recommend that others do the same. Even if you have to twitch and close your eyes for the unpleasant parts, the rest of the movie is worth it many times over.
Edit: I'm so sick and tired of people inlining the image from this post. I've removed it. If you want the damn image go get it off wikipedia.
Links to this post:
All posts and other content on DigitalChangeling.com are © 2005 - 2008 Eva Schiffer.